Learner Assessment of Teaching: Positive Feedback

 

Reading & Digesting Positive Feedback

In the spirit of full transparency, I will say that accepting positive feedback is not always my strong suit. It has taken me many years to trust such comments and consider how to incorporate them into my future teaching.

 

Verification: First and foremost, I use the positive input about actual methods, resources, projects and assessments, feedback, etc as a way to assess my continued work on differentiating my approach to my learners. These pieces of feedback are also useful to discern if I am crafting a culture of authentic learning and vulnerability, as well as a sense of safety within the learning process.

Reality Check: As for the particularly effusive comments about my teaching, I actually read those very closely but not for the reasons you might think.

There is a fine line between learners responding powerfully to a teacher in a way that reflects resonance with a teacher's personality rather than their actual learning. While I might not be everyone's cup of tea, for the most part, my learners feel both my excitement about the content and my authentic commitment to their learning. For some (as per their report), this may be one of the few times they have experienced this in a learning environment. As such, I always want to be certain that particularly effusive comments reflect how I am serving them in their learning in addition to their resonance with me..

Selected Quotes

Education and Supervision

"If you have the opportunity to take this class, you should do it. Stacy is an amazing teacher, deep thinker, tireless mentor, and exceptionally knowledgeable. Her courses are designed using current SoTL research, and it truly works. She moves students through the material in such a wonderful and transformative way. In the end, you are seeing the world from an entirely new perspective."

"This course was so needed, not just for me, but it is needed in the field of SLP in general."

"I feel grateful that the instructor of this course embodies the technical and compassionate aspects of a phenomenal educator. What a powerful experience to learn about teaching from an exemplary educator who models and applies the evidence based content she teaches."

"The instructor is an expert in evidence based instruction and she demonstrated that in this class."

"Stacy really knows her students and builds the information from week to week. She is so well versed in the information and provide us with additional resources to help deepen our knowledge if we are interested."

"We immediately applied knew knowledge into discussions to further ensure our ability to apply our new knowledge to our current practice."

"One of the best courses I have ever taken. This course answered the why and how of teaching and learning as we are being prepared for greater influence in speech pathology."

"Stacy is an exceptional teacher who has an amazingly deep and rich understanding of how people learn. I have learned so much from her in this class. My hopes for this class were high, and she still blew me away with how much she changed my brain in only 12 weeks."

Digital Literacies

"Stacy is incredibly engaging and authentic in her delivery and relating to us as students in this program. Her energy is infectious and perks me up to participate despite coming into class after work after a long day of work."

"Stacy is a motivator. She has the ability to get students to see things from multiple angles. She also has an incredible ability to help students to believe in themselves and to believe that with hard work they can achieve anything."

"Dr. Kaplan is an educational visionary"

"Her course was well designed and developed as far as content and flow however, she was always flexible in adapting to meet our needs."

"Stacy is amazing. She is approachable, challenging, intelligent, and inspiring. She believes in our cohort and engages our group to push beyond our limits."

"This course changed the way I approach all of my work, for the SLPD program and at my job...I will be forever grateful to Dr. Kaplan for this course and for the SLPD program."

"She fosters a community amongst her students which for an online class is impressive and much appreciated."

Clinical Anatomy, Physiology, & Motor Control

"This course not only provided me with a clear understanding of anatomical structures and their functions, but it also helped me integrate the system as a whole. By understanding how the system works as a whole, while also understanding the details of each individual aspect, I was able to think critically through case studies. Stacy made this course very enjoyable and demonstrated her clear passion for anatomy/physiology, as well as teaching. The classes were organized, and the notes Stacy provided us are invaluable resources that we can continue to reference throughout the rest of this program."

"There was a lot less pressure knowing that I could meet with Stacy to go over material that was challenging, but we were still pushed to do our best."

"I feel like the concepts I learned in my prerequisite classes finally clicked in this class since there was a lot of real–life application and critical thinking opportunities."

"Very engaging lecturer, very open to feedback, great at explaining challenging concepts both in class and during office hours."

"Dr Kaplan is a gifted lecturer and is able to explain complex systems in a way that is applicable to clinical work. It is clear that she is fully invested in each student's learning and she takes extra steps to support our academic journey."

"...the course helped me learn because it forced me to think about such topics in a clinical manner. I was 'thinking' and 'working' like a clinician."

"She is well-versed in different teaching methods to help us learn material in the most effective way."

"Stacy is extremely intelligent, yet approachable...she made sure to remind us that our goal is not necessarily to get a A+ on every assignment, but, rather, to really understand the material so that we may apply it to future clients."

"This course was helpful for learning how to think about the structure and function of the speech mechanism."

Counseling in Speech Language Pathology

"Stacy is perfect. She is super intelligent, approachable, kind, and a great public speaker. Can't get a better combination in an educator than that!"

"I think this course taught me extremely important skills I will use in my future life as a clinician."

"Stacy is someone I truly strive to be like. I have never been in an environment where I feel so supported by an instructor. She is somebody who puts her students and their understanding of the material before anything else."

"This course helped me develop my social-emotional clinical side. I learned how to process and help others process very difficult situations."

"Dr. Kaplan is super supportive. She knows what she is teaching and what she expects from us. She provides useful and immediate feedback which is really helpful."

"Very organized, stuck to the schedule, engaged in everything we shared as students. Incorporated feedback well and changed the class to fit our needs!"